Homegrown Meal

After last week’s fiasco of eating pizza on Friday night I decided that this week I would spend some time in the garden harvesting dinner.

Not that it was a chore or anything.

I love working in the garden and I have the suntan to prove it.

It was time to thin out the carrots and the turnips.

You know… you think you’ve spaced them far enough apart when you plant but those little seeds get away on you and all of a sudden 5 carrots are trying to grow in a space meant for one.

So into the basket goes tiny baby carrots.

Next, the thinning from the golden turnips.

They look like little globes and this is the first time I’ve grown then.

In amongst the turnips were a large bunch of leaves that looked like turnip tops and when I pulled away some dirt from the top I could see it was a similar colour to the turnips.

These are always interesting as you never know if a seed got mixed up or if it was just a turnip gone wild.

Turns out it was a parsnip that was leftover from a planting two years ago.

Who knew they could remain dormant that long.

I left the beets as we had them last night for dinner and went onto the potatoes.

There is nothing like new little potatoes straight out of the dirt.

The potatoes are flowering right not, so I just scraped away a little dirt from around the top and came up with enough golden nuggets for a feed..

I also found that the rain hadn’t gotten underneath the leaves as the soil was dry so started the hose running on them.

Heading over to the romaine lettuce it was time to pick the last of it.

I had been picking it for the last month and now it was coming to its end.

Cutting them off at the base I take off all the outside leaves along with the slugs and bugs before taking the rest of the lettuce into the house and a cold bath.

Interestingly enough, on the base of the plants still left in the soil, there are new leaves growing.

So I’m wondering if I’m going to get a second crop of lettuce out of them.

The peas where saying… “pick me, pick me” so I obliged them.

They are a snap pea and the sweetness really comes when you just give them a light steam.

And for dessert… strawberries.

There is nothing like fresh strawberries plucked off the plant and popped in your mouth to make your taste buds swoon.

Last year I ripped out all my everbearing plants and took the runners of the June bearing plants and planted them in their place.

That means this year all my strawberries are coming at the same time but they are big and juicy.

I found the everbearing ones were small and deformed a lot of the time.

There is netting over the strawberries held down on each side by hooking it over some screws on the sides of the box.

Not to keep out the quails this time but definitely to keep out the raccoons.

One year they decimated the crop!

It seems if you’re going to live with the birds and critters you need to find a way to cohabitate together.

The best defence is a good offence.

By now it’s 6:30 pm and time to think about starting dinner so I head into the house to wash and prepare the feast.

Dinner for two fresh from the garden.

Talk about a homegrown meal!

Jigsaw Puzzle

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